This invention relates to a control unit for adjusting heating, air conditioning and/or ventilation equipment in motor vehicles of a type including a base part that can be mounted in a dashboard, having a front panel in which one or more turning knobs are arranged which, when turned, adjust adjusting levers connected to pull linkages, with each adjusting lever being rotatably mounted in the base part and being guided by a guiding pin in a guide groove of a cam wheel.
Control units of this kind are frequently mounted in dashboards of motor vehicles, and serve to adjust distribution valves of duct outlets for cool or warm air by so-called Bowden wires, or other linkages.
German patent document (DE 34 34 302 C3) discloses such a control unit that includes a base part that can be mounted in a dashboard, having a front panel in which one or more turning knobs are arranged, each of which turns a first beveled wheel that operates a second beveled wheel, whereby both beveled wheels form a beveled wheel pair having rotational axes that are perpendicular to each other.
The respective second beveled wheels have one or more guide grooves for moving adjusting levers that, on the other ends, cooperate with Bowden wires.
The adjusting levers are one-armed levers (fulcrums at ends), one end of which has a pivot pin set into a pivot bearing of the base part, and the other end of which has the suspended Bowden wire, and between them there is a guiding pin that engages in the guide groove of the second beveled wheel.
Although this control unit according to the prior art functions satisfactorily, there is a need for a structure that is more space-saving, is easier and less expensive to produce, and which functions in an improved manner.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide a control unit according to the opening paragraph above that saves space, is easier and less expensive to produce, and functions in an improved manner.
According to principles of this invention, a control unit has a turning knob and a cam wheel which are connected together, an adjusting lever mounted in the base part by two bearing pins with the adjusting lever being structured as a two-armed lever (fulcrum in middle) and having one lever arm in a swivel plane E that engages in a three-dimensional cam-guide member of the cam wheel and a barrel-shaped or spherical follower element positioned between the lever arm and the three-dimensional cam-guide member that cooperates with radial, motion-causing, walls of the three-dimensional cam-guide member.